Renowned author and long-time Arkansas Tech University professor B. Clarence Hall died Tuesday at his home in Hot Springs. He was 68.

Hall suffered from melanoma cancer, the disease that ultimately caused his death this week.

The writer of several major novels and non-fiction works, and a professor of English and American Literature at Tech for 38 years, Hall's writings were once honorably acknowledged as "fascinating" by President Bill Clinton. Perhaps his most famous book, "The South," sold more than 30,000 copies.

Publishers Weekly magazine called the book "an intimately perceptive and vividly written portrait of the South," while USA Today reviewed it as "a new history written with novel-like grace and fresh insight." His other novels included "Big Muddy," "The Burning Season," "Bluebells," "King of Pain" and "Keepers of the Feast," along with others written under a pen name.

A man who would wake before 5 a.m. so he could write in the morning before teaching classes, Hall was inducted into the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame in 1997. His non-fiction work, "Judgment Day," was the winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award as the best national non-fiction book in 1994. "The South" was published the following year to critical acclaim.

His teaching did not take a back seat to his writing. In several archived articles of The Courier, Hall spoke of his fondness of Arkansas Tech, its professors and its students. He joined Tech's faculty when he was 25, having been recruited by Alfred Crabaugh and Lillian Massie, two well-known Tech professors.

"I'd had several offers, but Tech was different," Hall said in a 1995 feature article written by The Courier's Diane Edwards. "They had an attitude - sharp, but humble. Tech wasn't just some 'cow college.' It had a strong liberal arts background. Small, but strong."

In a 1999 article highlighting Hall's retirement from Tech, Hall dished out even more praise. He called the faculty at Tech the "unsung heroes of society," concluding: "It will be the teachers who solve the problems in the world. Governments don't."

Hall wrote his first novel at age 12 and accepted his first writing job at his hometown newspaper in Blytheville when he was 15. Six years later, he was covering state and city police activity, murder trials and other breaking news stories for the Log Cabin Democrat in Conway. Soon after, he earned his master's degree and began to teach on the college level.

"I always wanted to be a teacher," Hall said in the 1999 article. "I had some excellent teachers who were role models."

One of Hall's most moving works came following a near-death experience in 1989. He credited Dr. Lynn Haines, Dr. John King and Dr. Don Riley in the article (published in The Arkansas Times and republished in The Courier) for saving his life, calling them "heroes" and their work "radiant" - "They prolonged my frail existence," he wrote. "They are lightning doctors."

He wrote of his experience in an magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, a procedure that allowed the doctors to locate a tumor in his brain. The procedure did not come without thoughts of Hall's own existence.

"Was the shadow falling?" Hall wrote. "It was then that I was permitted to see my own death in a pure white light. It was indescribable, just sort of an 'other side' that was neither beautiful nor fearful. There is, after all, a consciousness after death, and it is not at all like everyone had thought.

"'Is this a good time to die?' I heard my voice asking. And at that moment, I knew that the choice was mine alone. What an astounding idea, to have a choice of life over death. Or the other. Both seemed equally appealing."

Being taken into the operating room to remove the tumor, Hall was told by his wife, Daphna, of the large group of his friends who had gathered in the hospital's waiting room.

"Why don't you get some pizzas for everybody?" Hall thought to ask.

Hall's funeral will be at 1 p.m. Monday at Caruth-Hale Funeral Home on Section Line Road in Hot Springs.